Got an idea for a bunch of 25GeV protons? Now's your chance to use them.

Share this story

Thanks to the European physics research center CERN, up to 30 high school students will be able to provide an exceptional answer when asked "what did you do over your summer vacation?" CERN is running a contest that will give a team of students the chance to use the output of one of its proton accelerators. If you or your child ever had some creative ideas about what you could smash with a bunch of 25GeV protons, now's your chance to speak up.

While the LHC is still shut down for upgrades, it's only the last step of a long chain of accelerators that feeds the collider protons already moving fairly quickly. One of them is the Proton Synchrotron. When it was built, the Proton Synchrotron was at the cutting edge of high-energy physics, but it was soon eclipsed by even larger machines. Since then, however, it's been used as an intermediary in CERN's accelerator chain, feeding 25GeV protons into lower energy experiments or into larger accelerators that boost them to higher speeds.

CERN is now allowing groups of students aged 16 and up to design an experiment that they can do with the protons from the Proton Synchrotron. The team with the winning proposal will get to fly nine of its members to Geneva at CERN's expense, where the team will get to help put their proposal into action. Proposals will be judged by whether they're creative and have a good scientific foundation, as well as whether they're technically feasible (sorry, no smashing protons into sharks). Anybody interested in taking part has to act quickly—the contest closes at the end of the month.

We could always use it for target testing for the Neutrino Factory. The plan is for a Tantalum rod, but over the past year we've looked into a Tungsten rod instead (it's to produce pions, which will decay into Muons, and then into neutrinos)

The LHC has been 'crossing streams' since it went into operation. No serious ill effects so far...though I have been feeling strange lately.

IIRC, the "bad" consequence Egon cited of crossing the streams was "every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light". That's definitely bad for the person in close proximity to the crossing streams. But it doesn't necessarily imply a universe or planet shattering event. And I expect that the LHC has safety protocols to keep people away from the streams, crossed or not.